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Yesterday I got an invitation to sail in a J/100 regatta up in Penobscot Bay, with a skipper I like very much. Sounds like a slam-dunk for me: one-design racing, in the most beautiful sailing venue around, with a good skipper, on a new J/100. Cool.

But on the Sunday of the regatta I am supposed to run a 10K. I signed up months ago. I haven't exactly been training, but I've had it in my head as a goal for a long time. Some friends of mine are doing it, although the friend I signed up with just told me she's dropping out. I don't particularly want to do it, but since I've picked it as a goal and a milestone, I am pretty resistant to dropping out.

I'm thinking I'll let myself go to the regatta if and only if I can come up with a replacement milestone/goal to do instead. Maybe I'll run 10K around Islesboro instead. Something like that.

If your 10K friend was counting on you, I'd say do the 10K. But she's dropping out, so this seems like a no-brainer. And Sherry, you're much more of a water creature than a land animal anyhow. Just reading the blog, these 10Ks, marathons, and X-C skiing have always seemed like a chore to you. You write about sailing and the water much more happily.

Duh! Yep, it's absolutely fitting that you should be on the J/80 on the water where you belong and not turning the 10k into some sort of compulsive obligation instead of healthy enjoyment. That 10k is sounding too much like a job or something that's been turned into a "should" and you know better than to let anyone or anything should upon you.

For landlubbers, that J/80's a racing sailboat about twenty-six feet long, but with a cabin and some basic comforts so that it's somewhat more of an indulgence than an Etchells.

Whoops, I mis-read the type of J; you'll be on a much bigger, niftier, even more awesome sort of boat. Absolutely go for it! And, we'll be waiting to hear all about it and envy you this great and well-deserved opportunity!

<< The J/100 makes no bones about what it was designed for: to be a 33-foot daysailer that can be sailed easily shorthanded, with hot performance for club racing or just to recapture the joy of sailing in the dinghy days. As the brochure says, it's the "Sunfish or Hobie of the 1960's or their J/24 of the 1980's ...reincarnated.">>
http://www.48north.com/apr_2005/j100.htm

Go sailing... your heart isn't in the run...especially if you haven't been training for it, and your friend has already bailed on it. A J/100, Penobscot Bay, a skipper you like... Definitely a no-brainer.